Grey
by The Sentient Wolf
Summary: Severus Snape is neither Black or White, he is a shade of grey unlike anything on the colour spectrum.


Title: Grey

Rating: T (for safety I guess)

Summary: Severus Snape is neither Black or White, he is a shade of grey unlike anything on the colour spectrum.

Disclaimer: JK Rowling you are a legend!

Notes: Less than a month to go to Book 7! Hard to believe…

Anyway, I haven't written anything in ages, so this is just to ease me back into the swing of things. It's not my best, I admit. Please let me know what you think.

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There are things about Severus Snape that only I know.

I know that he structures his day around a strict schedule and that even the smallest of tasks are meticulously constructed and executed. He wakes every morning at 6 AM and he showers every evening at 6 PM. The rest of his day slots in between, both mediocre and imperative undertakings are awarded their own specific time of day. He follows this routine to obsession.

He does this to retain a sense of control. A control that was stripped from him at a time far out of reach of his memory.

He does not know he uttered the first cry of "Daddy please…don't…" He knows only that it is the single constant in a childhood of inconsistency.

I know that he adheres to a strict filing system. The pieces of homework his students do he magically duplicates and stores, labeling them according to surname, then christened name, then year, then House.

This ensures that no student can claim that the Potions Master has lost an item of his or her work, when in reality it was simply never handed in.

He does this because in his first year of teaching he lost a seventh year's assignment and had to publicly appologise.

I know that he does not eat seafood. The house elves were informed of this when Severus first became a member of my staff, and they are yet to serve him this forbidden dish. The mere smell of fish is enough to make Severus nauseous.

This is because, in their third year James Potter and Sirius Black jinxed a piece of salmon to rot and become infested with maggots just as Severus took a bite.

The boys claimed that they had not intended for Severus to eat this ghastly victual, only for him to drop his fork in repulsion and debase himself.

And I believed them.

Or I convinced myself that I did.

I know that he likes his tea black with a slice of lemon and no sugar.

On a night that seems like a lifetime ago a young man, just a child really, had made his way to my office, pleading repentance. It was then that nineteen years of suffering and shame had littered the air between us, and I had offered him a cup of tea to soothe his frayed nerves.

It is his preference because in his earliest memory of her, Severus' mother had sung him to sleep, pausing only to take a sip of her black, unsweetened tea.

I know that he has difficulty falling asleep each and every night. For hours he is trapped in the depths of waking nightmares and assaulted with images of bloodied, mutilated corpses and sounds of screams so demonic one has to believe that they are not human.

He experiences these things as any murderer would, for they are the final imprint of lives cut unnaturally short. They are the embittered, angry hauntings of those no longer able to voice their agonies.

I know that his mind is the most complex of anyone I have ever known, save Voldemort himself. There are dark passages in the twists and turns of his consciousness that pulsate with a magic unique to him. These corridors seem to expand around my mind as I enter his, and contract suddenly to lock me to him as he pulls me in one direction or the other, revealing to me only what he wants me to see.

He does this out of instinct, one born out of years of espionage and deception. He was a born Occlumens as he had learnt from a young age to keep his emotions sheltered from the world.

Still, in the years he has shown me things that no one else could ever bear witness to. Things I often wish I had never seen.

Yet I cherish those moments of revelation and relish his trust in me. I push to the most clandestine depths of my mind the fact that I take some pleasure in him baring his pain.

The fact that I take contentment in his hurt…

I know that he makes the same noise for both pleasure and pain. It is a sound midway between a moan and a gasp. It builds in the back of his throat and is muffled by a clenched jaw and it is often difficult to distinguish which sensation he is experiencing as it erupts from his thin lips.

This is because he is yet to differentiate between the two. For Severus pleasure and pain are always intertwined and a single entity.

And I give him both.

I know that he is not on my side, nor is he on Voldemort's. Severus Snape is neither Black or White, he is a shade of grey unlike anything on the colour spectrum.

And I accept it.

I know that, whatever the outcome of the war, he will never be satisfied. Either way Severus will be labeled a traitor.

Or a pawn.

He knows this and cannot stand it.

In this war Severus is the puppet master, but is always portrayed as though manipulated by strings.

And I know that after the battle Severus Snape will have nothing to live for.

He feeds off the chaos and breathes the conflict. It gives him a reason to wake up each morning.

He will prolong the inevitable for as long as he can, teasing both sides with just enough information to keep us both aware, but not enough for either to triumph.

But we both know that he cannot continue this indefinitely. The day will come when the climax descends upon us and we are all left with no Headquarters to run to and no school to hide within.

That will be the day that Severus Snape's role comes to an end.

And I know that his life will follow suit.


End file.
